


Home is where we kill the monsters

by TheyDraggedMeInNowIAintLeaving



Series: Sterek Bingo 2018 [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Almost Dying, Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - Future, Blood, Fighting, Gen, Pre-Slash, Stiles is bitten, Violence, Wendigo, mostly implied - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 09:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheyDraggedMeInNowIAintLeaving/pseuds/TheyDraggedMeInNowIAintLeaving
Summary: Everything's peaceful... until they find the hiker





	Home is where we kill the monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Sterek Bingo](https://sterek-bingo.tumblr.com/): Heart beat, monster of the week, the bite
> 
> Yes, I take title suggestions... if you think I forgot some tags or the rating is wrong let me know, otherwise comments, kudos and constructive critism welcome.

The thing was that Peter had been both right and wrong when he’d accused Stiles of lying back when he’d offered the bite but seeing as nobody else had offered after the shitstorm that had been the last few years of high school Stiles had resigned to being the only (ordinary) human in a pack of wolves, banshees, hunters and whatever else managed to stumble through Beacon Hills without murderous intent.

Somewhere around graduation they got the Nemeton calmed down to what it had been before the Hale fire, significantly lowering the number of things stopping by intending to eat, maim or kill the unsuspecting inhabitants of Beacon Hills, and affording the pack the peace and quiet needed to actually _become_ a pack and not just acquaintances relying on each other when death was imminent. It also gave them time to sit down and figure out what they wanted to do with their lives now they didn’t have to fight for them on a daily basis and soon they were all going off in search of an education.

Getting back home for good the first thing they did was to stop by at Derek’s newly built house to unload their things (Derek might have built it on Hale land with Hale money, but he’d made it clear it was intended for pack and that each of them was welcome to come live there) before going to visit their families or just walk around seeing what had changed since they’d last been home at Christmas.

Everything was nice and quiet until the first hiker went missing only to turn up later as mostly bones but with a few pieces of rotting flesh still clinging to a few. From there it had only been a matter of a few super sniffers to find out whoever did it was supernatural in origin but that was the end of their luck.

That is until Stiles stumbles across an obscure reference and by the time he thought to call for back up the thing was almost on top of him. The fight was short, despite Stiles putting on a bit of muscle since his high school days he wasn’t really a match for a wendigo and by the time he was able to see the blurry forms of the wolves he was already busy bleeding out.

~x~

Derek has never run so fast in his life, the woods around him nothing but a smear of blurry green and brown and the only thing he’s able to hear is the single, desperate thought looping around his brain of _please be alive please be alive please be alive please please please_.

Seeing Stiles (vibrant, ever moving, ever talking) lying too still and too quiet on the forest floor brings him to a stop miraculously just out of reach of the monstrous thing covered in Stiles’ blood. Derek doesn’t really decide attacking he just does, flying through the air as fangs and claws replace teeth and nails.

Soon the ground beneath them is a mess of bloodied dirt, open wounds on their bodies bleeding sluggishly, but though Derek’s are knitting themselves together (slowly, but he’s healing nevertheless) and the wendigo doesn’t have any kind of accelerated healing he’s still losing, his breath ragged and fatigue setting in, will soon cause him to make a mistake he can’t afford.

And then the pack is there, the wolves dragging him from the thing while Lydia throws a few well aimed molotov cocktails at it and Allison’s firing arrow after arrow at it falls down – Derek’s across the clearing before it’s entirely dead, all that matters is how he can’t hear Stiles’ heart over the sound of his own, how the bleeding has stopped and how cold his skin feels beneath Derek’s hands. His control is slipping the wolf straining against his hold as it urges him to _bite_ , but Derek can’t do that not to Stiles who doesn’t want it - who’s already refused it - so instead he throws back him head and howls his grief to the heavens, only to have Scott suddenly in his face, yelling, screaming, crying and then there’s the taste of blood in Derek’s mouth, the sweetness coating his tongue even as he tries to pull away but the whole pack is there, making it impossible for him to move.

~x~

There’s a sound 

_ thump _

that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago, a sound that makes Derek lift his head and look closer at the body in front of him. There’s nothing to see, but the sound

_ thump _

is still there, faint enough that only his enhanced senses can account for why he’s even able to hear it in the first place. He shuffles a little closer (is it his imagination or is the hand he’s holding getting warmer?) but as far as he can tell nothing has changed since he was able to push the wolf back into a corner of his mind and gently remove his fangs from too pale skin.

_ thump-thump-thump _

It comes in rapid succession and is that color returning to Stiles’ skin? Derek feels lightheaded holding his breath as he’s trying to figure out whether it’s real or wishful thinking.

 _thump-thump- THUMPthump-thump_ it slowly grows stronger, louder and there! Stiles’ eyelids slowly opening taking in the sight of the pack standing over him, Derek on his knees beside him holding his hand. He wants to ask what has happened, wants to know why they all look so hesitantly happy but then he notices the tear tracks on Derek’s face, remembers the wendigo tearing through his flesh and rather than talking he takes a moment to catalogue everything around him.

It’s a shock realizing he can hear things he couldn’t when he woke up this morning, can smell not only the rotting carcass of the dead wendigo but the blood under it, can smell how much of it is _Derek’s_ ; knowing what he’s looking for it’s not difficult to find the new wolf in his mind, it’s chops stretched on a wolfish grin at Stiles’ attention though only briefly as it returned its attention to the man still kneeling besides him.  
Taking the hint Stiles carefully looked closer, seeing the way his head was bent and he was refusing eye contact; Stiles remembers calling Peter a creeper and how bad-touch the whole encounter leading to him offering the bite had been, an explanation to the acrid smell surrounding Derek presenting itself neatly wrapped.  
However, letting Derek wallow in his guilt is not something Stiles is willing to allow so he lifts the hand Derek isn’t holding and gently turns his face enough that they can look each other in the eye.

”I’m glad it’s you,” is all he says, knowing that Derek understood when the alpha pulls him closer, hugging him tighter than he ever has before.

**End**


End file.
